Google to cut DoubleClick jobs, sell Performics piece

by Juan Carlos Peréz

April 3, 2008 —

Less than a month after closing
its DoubleClick acquisition, Google on Wednesday announced significant but
expected changes in the ad services company that include reducing
its staff and selling part of its Performics
division.

Google will lay off or offer "transitional roles" to about 25 percent
of DoubleClick's U.S. workforce, a source familiar with the plan said. The person,
who asked not to be named, said that staffers offered a transitional role would
be employed in a contract position for a certain period of time

Google acknowledged that DoubleClick's staff will be cut, without offering
details about the number of positions eliminated. "Since our acquisition
of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick
employees in the U.S. with our organizational plan for the business. As with
many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in headcount at the acquired
company. Today, we are laying off some DoubleClick employees in the U.S. and
placing others in transitional roles," Google said in a statement.

Prior to the layoffs announced Wednesday, DoubleClick had 1,500 employees worldwide,
including 1,200 in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Google has decided to divest itself of the search engine marketing
(SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) group within Performics, a move that
had also been anticipated. Providing SEO and SEM services puts Google in some
potential conflict of interest situations that could damage its relationship
with independent SEO and SEM firms and with Performics clients.

"It's clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing
business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount
to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users,"
wrote Tom Phillips, director of the DoubleClick integration process, in
an official blog posting.

Google doesn't yet have a buyer for the Performics business, but it has "received
preliminary interest" from some current partners, according to Phillips.
"Search Marketing will continue to run as a separate entity until the division
is sold," he wrote.

Google will retain Performics' affiliate marketing business and integrate it
into existing Google operations, Phillips wrote.

SEO and SEM firms, which provide services for improving Web sites' search-engine
rankings and running effective search-engine ad campaigns, had been vocal about
their displeasure at having Google, until now a partner, turned into a competitor
via Performics.

A key concern in the SEO area was that Performics would get special access
to inside information about Google's search-engine algorithms, putting independent
SEO firms at a disadvantage. Meanwhile, there was concern that Google would
push its in-house Performics SEM services at highly discounted prices, or maybe
even for free, in competition with SEM service providers.

A potential conflict of interest situation involved the conceptually divergent
missions of Performics and Google's ad sales business. Performics is supposed
to get its clients the highest return on investment (ROI) from their paid search
campaigns -- spending as little as necessary to achieve their goals. But Google's
business is to sell as much advertising as possible. This, critics pointed out,
could lead Performics to put Google's interests above those of its clients.

The Performics SEO services also put Google in the business of taking money
from clients in exchange for helping them rank better in search-engine results,
something Google has always vowed not to do. Moreover, Performics provides paid
inclusion services into search engines that engage in this practice, in which
a company pays a search engine to include its Web site in its index. Google
has always been highly critical of paid inclusion services, and doesn't offer
them.

IDG News Service